Recently my friend Lili and I had the pleasure of visiting the Amsterdam studio of Dutch graphic designer, illustrator, artist, art director, clothing company owner Parra. For a guy as mellow as he is, he definitely gets a lot done. He is currently art directing for several companies such as Colorblind Skateboards and Ben G as well as his own cut and sew clothing brand Rockwell Clothing. His client list for illustration and design work includes companies like Nike, Etnies, Zoo York and Heineken. In the last few months he has had a sold out show at the Reed Space in New York and another at HVW8 in Los Angeles. He also plays in a couple of bands (the names of which I have forgotten). Oh, and he used to skate for Think and Venture in the '90s. Not bad for a guy who wakes up at noon everyday.

Parra
After spending a bit of time in Amsterdam, you start to notice that this guy's work is everywhere. On any given day, you'll see kids wearing his shirts or shoes, ads and fliers he's graced and his paintings/prints hanging at shops all over the place. Its pretty rad to see how much support he gets out there.

We did an interview that turned into more of a loose conversation about commercial illustration that had far too many "likes" and "ums" and "dudes" in it to really do anyone justice, so instead of posting the entire thing, I'll just put up a few of the better sections from it. -Nate

N  So it seems like you've done tons of product stuff. I had no idea. So how long have you been at it?P  Oh wow. Like quite a while. Umm I'm 31 now and think I started working in Amsterdam like 10 years ago.N  Oh, you're not from Amsterdam. Where're you from?P  I'm from the south.N  Dirty.P  Haha. Deep deep south. I was born there but never lived there. It was Nijmegen I think I lived last.N  Awe dude. I went to Nijmegen.P  Neimeg is really a place I hardly ever visit now.N  There were tons of thugs there with huge gelled mullets. Next level mullets.P  That's crazy. Yeah. Ha ha...

L  So did you go to Art school here in the Netherlands or did you just start designing and stuff?
P  Ah no. Well of course I wanted to go to art school, 'cause my father's a painter and I wanted to follow in his footsteps, but then I was too young. I wanted to enroll when I was like 17, not the Rietveld, but in Arnhem, and they said well you're too young, come back next year, your works not good enough... which it wasn't. So I was like really pissed off. I was like fuck you. I'll do it myself. But then I had to learn quickly. I had to figure a way 'cause I had to do something. Cause if your 17 you can't really work.
N - Oh that's right. In Holland there's weird laws.
P  Yeah the only thing you can do is like work in a grocery store or something.
L  Weird.
P  Yeah so then umm what'd I do? I went to some stupid school where they taught drawing to be a teacher. Drawing teacher. Did that for like one year and then switched the course to free art, and then basically did nothing for 2 years. I just skated. I never visited the place. And then they said well you have to intern now, well cool, so I called a lot of people from skateboarding and eventually got work at a web place in the center of Amsterdam.

L  Nice.
P  Early internet stages. And then they let me intern there for 3 months and then they kept me there and I never went back.N  Really? Where was this?P  It was an internet company. But an ex-skater, an older guy who worked there. It was funny. He brought me there and I couldn't even switch on a computer.N  Yeah.P  I was like uh oh. But the guy taught me Illustrator and I kind of went from there.N  Yeah, that's the story that goes down a lot...P  Yeah, you have to kind of do it yourself man.
----------------------------
N Is this is an Illustration for the New Yorker?
P  No that's not the New Yorker. It's a crap magazine I think. 'Cause in the end there are all these ads to buy condos for 6 million. If I knew this... It's my agent you know. He's like oh yeah it's a good magazine and I'm like OK. It's like some crappy free thing.

Colorblind boards

I'm sure this photo will soon be all over the internet.

New board graphics for Rockwell, Patta and Ben G.

N  So you have like an agent that like gets you jobs and everything?P  Yeah, without that I'd be... I wouldn't have this house. Nothing. He saved my, basically my life. I didn't know what to do and then he like, he made me an Illustrator. I thought I was a graphic designer and he said "Oh you're and Illustrator" and I said "OK cool". We shook hands and then a week later I arrived home and he's got my first client and it just went on and on and never stopped for two years. They're called Big Active. They're in London. They print big. This guy is with them as well. Jody Barton. I bought that peice from him.N  Penis god meets scrotum.P  It's called Cock versus Balls.N  Haha
L  So does he have mostly Illustrator and designers?P  Just Illustrators and he's pretty high end because he only has 11 Illustrators and they usually have like a bunch.N  Does he take like a ridiculous fee?P  No. Not really. No. 25% and I called around and that's pretty usual.
L  Well if your at a gallery they take like 50.
P  Yeah. This is the Big Active site. I'll show you this 'cause it's basically what I live off of. It kind of boosted me into the commercial illustration culture.
L  So did he come to you or...?
P  Yeah he came to me. That's the dope part. He found out. I had a solo show in London, my first ever. I had cheap prints. They were like 2 bucks to make and I sold them for 20 pounds and the whole city had a laugh about it. You serious? 20 pounds? Ok I'll take 5. But it sold out because it was so cheap. He heard about this idea prior and he wanted to have a private view the day before.N  So did he buy tons of stuff too?

The collabo logo for the three brands.

P  Yeah. He was like "Wow. How long does it take because you hand paint all this stuff?" I'm like "No Dude." He's quick. His eyes lit up because he was like "Damn he can work fast too". He's got a lot of people and they all have like different styles. I was really honoured to be a part of that 'cause it's like a family. So every artist he has is like a complete different style. So he has no doubles.
L  Yeah.
P  So that really helps the work. In a week I'd say 50% is on commercial work, nice stuff like book covers and stuff.N  That's awesome.
P - And the other 50% is just making drawings.
L  So do you have like a set schedule like you wake up and treat it like a regular job?P  Yeah I try too. Yeah. Definitely. The day's a bit shit for me... I cannot get up that early. I do not function you know. So I said Ok I'll go to sleep late and I'll work late. That's the whole deal. But usually I work at 12 and I stop at 6. I do half days!N  Ha!! ha!!

P  Because I had a bit of a pain in my wrist from drawing all day...N  Well even sitting in front of the computer all day is like...P  It's horrible man.
-------------
P My father is a really big inspiration to me in the beginning but like now he's copying me.N  Oh yeah?
L  This is your dad's work? It's awesome!P  Yeah this is my dads stuff. He sends me things in the mail. He makes copies and "Look, I draw them" Its sick like a morph. This one I did a version of. He sent me this and I made this. So that's like, really nice. I call him every week to see what he's doing and tell him what I'm doing.

N  That's cool you work off one another...P  Well he's really productive. You know I'm productive but he's like insane. He can draw a whole book in a day. He'll fill it up, one of those dummies. These are copies from that. Basically what I want, what I made for the Jeff Staple show, is a little movie where you see me actually hand drawing something. But they didn't use it.N  Oh really?P  'Cause I think a lot of people think I just draw it straight on the computer, which is impossible.

We haven't been featuring many interviews as of late. Let's change that up as we check in with a few local San Francisco artists like Kevin Earl Taylor here whom we studio visited back in 2009 (PHOTOS & VIDEO). It's been awhile, Kevin...

If you like guns and boobs, head on over to the Shooting Gallery; just don't expect the work to be all cheap ploys and hot chicks. With Make Stuff by Peter Gronquist (Portland) in the main space and Morgan Slade's Snake in the Eagle's Shadow in the project space, there is plenty spectacle to be had, but if you look just beyond it, you might actually get something out of the shows.

Fifty24SF opened Street Anatomy, a new solo show by Austrian artist Nychos a week ago last Friday night. He's been steadily filling our city with murals over the last year, with one downtown on Geary St. last summer, and new ones both in the Haight and in Oakland within the last few weeks, but it was really great to see his work up close and in such detail.

Congrats on our buddies at Needles and Pens on being open and rad for 11 years now. Mission Local did this little short video featuring Breezy giving a little heads up on what Needles and Pens is all about.

Matt Wagner recently emailed over some photos from The Hellion Gallery in Tokyo, who recently put together a show with AJ Fosik (Portland) called Beast From a Foreign Land. The gallery gave twelve of Fosik's sculptures to twelve Japanese artists (including Hiro Kurata who is currently showing in our group show Salt the Skies) to paint, burn, or build upon.

Backwoods Gallery in Melbourne played host to a huge group exhibition a couple of weeks back, with "Gold Blood, Magic Weirdos" Curated by Melbourne artist Sean Morris. Gold Blood brought together 25 talented painters, illustrators and comic artists from Australia, the US, Singapore, England, France and Spain - and marked the end of the Magic Weirdos trilogy, following shows in Perth in 2012 and London in 2013.

San Francisco based Fecal Pal Jeremy Fish opened his latest solo show Hunting Trophies at LA's Mark Moore Gallery last week to massive crowds and cabin walls lined with imagery pertaining to modern conquest and obsession.

Well, John Felix Arnold III is at it again. This time, he and Carolyn LeBourgios packed an entire show into the back of a Prius and drove across the country to install it at Superchief Gallery in NYC. I met with him last week as he told me about the trip over delicious burritos at Taqueria Cancun (which is right across the street from FFDG and serves what I think is the best burrito in the city) as the self proclaimed "Only overweight artist in the game" spilled all the details.

Ever Gold opened a new solo show by NYC based Henry Gunderson a couple Saturday nights ago and it was literally packed. So packed I couldn't actually see most of the art - but a big crowd doesn't seem like a problem. I got a good laugh at what I would call the 'cock climbing wall' as it was one of the few pieces I could see over the crowd. I haven't gotten a chance to go back and check it all out again, but I'm definitely going to as the paintings that I could get a peek at were really high quality and intruiguing. You should do the same.

The paintings in the show are each influenced by a musician, ranging from Freddy Mercury, to Madonna, to A Tribe Called Quest and they are so stylistically consistent with each musician's persona that they read as a cohesive body of work with incredible variation. If you told me they were each painted by a different person, I would not hesitate to believe you and it's really great to see a solo show with so much variety. The show is fun, poppy, very well done, and absolutely worth a look and maybe even a listen.

With rising rent in SF and knowing mostly other young artists without capitol, I desired a way to live rent free, have a space to do my craft, and get to see more of the world. Inspired by the many historical artists who have longed similar longings I discovered the beauty of artist residencies. Lilo runs Adhoc Collective in Vienna which not only has a fully equipped artists creative studio, but an indoor halfpipe, and private artist quarters. It was like a modern day castle or skate cathedral. It exists in almost a utopic state, totally free to those that apply and come with a real passion for both art and skateboarding

I just wanted to share with you a piece I recently finished which took me 4 years to complete. Titled "How To Lose Yourself Completely (The September Issue)", it consists of a copy of the September 2007 issue of Vogue magazine (the issue they made the documentary about) with all faces masked with a sharpie, and everything else entirely whited out. 840 pages of fun. -Bryan Schnelle

Jeremy Fish opens Hunting Trophies tonight, Saturday April 5th, at the Los Angeles based Mark Moore Gallery. The show features new work from Fish inside the "hunting lodge" where viewers climb inside the head of the hunter and explore the history of all the animals he's killed.

Beautiful piece entitled "The Albatross and the Shipping Container", Ink on Paper, Mounted to Panel, 47" Diameter, by San Francisco based Martin Machado now on display at FFDG. Stop in Saturday (1-6pm) to view the group show "Salt the Skies" now running through April 19th. 2277 Mission St. at 19th.

For some reason I thought it would be a good idea to quit my job, move out of my house, leave everything and travel again. So on August 21, 2013 I pushed a canoe packed full of gear into the headwaters of the Mississippi River in Lake Itasca, Minnesota, along with four of my best friends. Exactly 100 days later, I arrived at a marina near the Gulf of Mexico in a sailboat.

I'm not sure how many people are lucky enough to have The San Francisco Giants 3 World Series trophies put on display at their work for the company's employees to enjoy during their lunch break, but that's what happened the other day at Deluxe. So great.

When works of art become commodities and nothing else, when every endeavor becomes “creative” and everybody “a creative,” then art sinks back to craft and artists back to artisans—a word that, in its adjectival form, at least, is newly popular again. Artisanal pickles, artisanal poems: what’s the difference, after all? So “art” itself may disappear: art as Art, that old high thing. Which—unless, like me, you think we need a vessel for our inner life—is nothing much to mourn.

Hard-working artisan, solitary genius, credentialed professional—the image of the artist has changed radically over the centuries. What if the latest model to emerge means the end of art as we have known it? --continue reading

"[Satire] is important because it brings out the flaws we all have and throws them up on the screen of another person," said Turner. “How they react sort of shows how important that really is.” Later, he added, "Charlie took a hit for everybody." -read on

NYC --- A new graffiti abatement program put forth by the police commissioner has beat cops carrying cans of spray paint to fill in and cover graffiti artists work in an effort to clean up the city --> Many cops are thinking it's a waste of resources, but we're waiting to see someone make a project of it. Maybe instructions for the cops on where to fill-in?

The NYPD is arming its cops with cans of spray paint and giving them art-class-style lessons to tackle the scourge of urban graffiti, The Post has learned.

Shootings are on the rise across the city, but the directive from Police Headquarters is to hunt down street art and cover it with black, red and white spray paint, sources said... READ ON

SAN FRANCISCO --- The Headlands Center for the Arts is preparing for their largest fundraiser of the year set to go down on June 4th at SOMArts here in the city. Art auction, food, drinks, live music, etc and all for helping to support a great institution up in the Marin Headlands. ~details

ABOUT HEADLANDSHeadlands Center for the Arts provides an unparalleled environment for the creative process and the development of new work and ideas. Through a range of programs for artists and the public, we offer opportunities for reflection, dialogue, and exchange that build understanding and appreciation for the role of art in society.

We haven't been featuring many interviews as of late. Let's change that up as we check in with a few local San Francisco artists like Kevin Earl Taylor here whom we studio visited back in 2009 (PHOTOS & VIDEO). It's been awhile, Kevin...

If you like guns and boobs, head on over to the Shooting Gallery; just don't expect the work to be all cheap ploys and hot chicks. With Make Stuff by Peter Gronquist (Portland) in the main space and Morgan Slade's Snake in the Eagle's Shadow in the project space, there is plenty spectacle to be had, but if you look just beyond it, you might actually get something out of the shows.

Fifty24SF opened Street Anatomy, a new solo show by Austrian artist Nychos a week ago last Friday night. He's been steadily filling our city with murals over the last year, with one downtown on Geary St. last summer, and new ones both in the Haight and in Oakland within the last few weeks, but it was really great to see his work up close and in such detail.

Congrats on our buddies at Needles and Pens on being open and rad for 11 years now. Mission Local did this little short video featuring Breezy giving a little heads up on what Needles and Pens is all about.

Matt Wagner recently emailed over some photos from The Hellion Gallery in Tokyo, who recently put together a show with AJ Fosik (Portland) called Beast From a Foreign Land. The gallery gave twelve of Fosik's sculptures to twelve Japanese artists (including Hiro Kurata who is currently showing in our group show Salt the Skies) to paint, burn, or build upon.

Backwoods Gallery in Melbourne played host to a huge group exhibition a couple of weeks back, with "Gold Blood, Magic Weirdos" Curated by Melbourne artist Sean Morris. Gold Blood brought together 25 talented painters, illustrators and comic artists from Australia, the US, Singapore, England, France and Spain - and marked the end of the Magic Weirdos trilogy, following shows in Perth in 2012 and London in 2013.

San Francisco based Fecal Pal Jeremy Fish opened his latest solo show Hunting Trophies at LA's Mark Moore Gallery last week to massive crowds and cabin walls lined with imagery pertaining to modern conquest and obsession.

Well, John Felix Arnold III is at it again. This time, he and Carolyn LeBourgios packed an entire show into the back of a Prius and drove across the country to install it at Superchief Gallery in NYC. I met with him last week as he told me about the trip over delicious burritos at Taqueria Cancun (which is right across the street from FFDG and serves what I think is the best burrito in the city) as the self proclaimed "Only overweight artist in the game" spilled all the details.

Ever Gold opened a new solo show by NYC based Henry Gunderson a couple Saturday nights ago and it was literally packed. So packed I couldn't actually see most of the art - but a big crowd doesn't seem like a problem. I got a good laugh at what I would call the 'cock climbing wall' as it was one of the few pieces I could see over the crowd. I haven't gotten a chance to go back and check it all out again, but I'm definitely going to as the paintings that I could get a peek at were really high quality and intruiguing. You should do the same.

The paintings in the show are each influenced by a musician, ranging from Freddy Mercury, to Madonna, to A Tribe Called Quest and they are so stylistically consistent with each musician's persona that they read as a cohesive body of work with incredible variation. If you told me they were each painted by a different person, I would not hesitate to believe you and it's really great to see a solo show with so much variety. The show is fun, poppy, very well done, and absolutely worth a look and maybe even a listen.

With rising rent in SF and knowing mostly other young artists without capitol, I desired a way to live rent free, have a space to do my craft, and get to see more of the world. Inspired by the many historical artists who have longed similar longings I discovered the beauty of artist residencies. Lilo runs Adhoc Collective in Vienna which not only has a fully equipped artists creative studio, but an indoor halfpipe, and private artist quarters. It was like a modern day castle or skate cathedral. It exists in almost a utopic state, totally free to those that apply and come with a real passion for both art and skateboarding

I just wanted to share with you a piece I recently finished which took me 4 years to complete. Titled "How To Lose Yourself Completely (The September Issue)", it consists of a copy of the September 2007 issue of Vogue magazine (the issue they made the documentary about) with all faces masked with a sharpie, and everything else entirely whited out. 840 pages of fun. -Bryan Schnelle

Jeremy Fish opens Hunting Trophies tonight, Saturday April 5th, at the Los Angeles based Mark Moore Gallery. The show features new work from Fish inside the "hunting lodge" where viewers climb inside the head of the hunter and explore the history of all the animals he's killed.

Beautiful piece entitled "The Albatross and the Shipping Container", Ink on Paper, Mounted to Panel, 47" Diameter, by San Francisco based Martin Machado now on display at FFDG. Stop in Saturday (1-6pm) to view the group show "Salt the Skies" now running through April 19th. 2277 Mission St. at 19th.

For some reason I thought it would be a good idea to quit my job, move out of my house, leave everything and travel again. So on August 21, 2013 I pushed a canoe packed full of gear into the headwaters of the Mississippi River in Lake Itasca, Minnesota, along with four of my best friends. Exactly 100 days later, I arrived at a marina near the Gulf of Mexico in a sailboat.

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